1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a production line system using a heat pump.
2. Description of the Related Art
A production line system for a carbonated beverage manufacturing plant has been known as a conventional production line system (Japanese Patent No. 3810036). The system has a cooling step of cooling raw water for a beverage with cooling brine and a heating step of heating a product after filling the beverage into a container to the dew point using high-temperature water. In the heating step, high-temperature water is produced using condensation heat on the condenser side in a heating unit which has a heat pump cycle driven by exhaust heat from the plant as a heating source. Further, in the cooling step, the product is cooled with the cooling brine using evaporative cooled heat on the evaporator side in a cooling unit which has a heat pump cycle driven by exhaust heat from the heating step as a heating source.
In such a production line system for a carbonated beverage manufacturing plant, there are a plurality of heat pump cycles, and a distance from the heating step and the cooling step to the heat pump cycles is long in general because the cooling step, the heating step, and heat discharge from the plant are performed via a carbonation step and a bottling step. Accordingly, a large amount of energy is wasted, and it is necessary to install the heat pump cycles (heating/cooling systems) in the entire large-scale plant, resulting in poor flexibility in size.
An object of a first aspect of the present invention is to provide a production line system of processing machines which is high in energy efficiency and flexibility.